DD 228 

.5 
.B8 
1914 
Copy 1 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 

AND 

THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

GERMANISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA 

JANUARY 5, 1909 



BY 

JOHN W. BURGESS, PH.D., LL.D. 

DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

FIRST ROOSEVELT PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY AT BERLIN 

PRESIDENT OF THE GERMANISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



]^cw York 
1909 



DD 228 

.5 
.B8 

1914 publications of tbe Oermanistic Society of Hmecica 

Copy 1 jj 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 

AND 

THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 

AND 

THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

GERMANISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA 

JANUARY 5, 1909 



BY 

JOHN W. BURGESS, PH.D., LL.D. 

DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

FIRST ROOSEVELT PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY AT BERLIN 

PRESIDENT OF THE GERMANISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



1909 



31J\2Z% 



Published 1909 
Reprinted 1914 



Gift ... 

toy K isj6 



THE GERMAN EMPEROR 

AND 

THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT 



Since my return from Germany in the autumn of 1907, at 
the close of my term as Roosevelt Professor at the Uni- 
versity in Berlin, I have been constantly importuned by 
newspapers and magazines and numberless societies and 
associations as well as individuals to say or write something 
about the German Emperor. Down to this time I have 
steadily refused to accede to any such propositions or re- 
quests, but now that the American public seems in some 
danger of being misled into what I consider a false view of 
this admirable man, I have concluded that it is my duty to 
say a few words out of my own experience, which has been a 
long and full experience, both as regards the German Em- 
peror and the German people. It is now nearly forty 
years since I began to know Germany and her people. As 
a young student of history, jurisprudence and political 
science in the Universities at Gottingen, Leipzig and Ber- 
lin, in the period of the formation of the present German 
Empire, I had the best of opportunities to study and ob- 
serve the imperial institutions in the making and the spirit 
of the intellectual leaders of the nation in its development. 
Hardly a period of two years has elapsed between then 
and now without my having passed several months in 

5 



Germany, renewing old acquaintanceships and making 
new, until now my personal connections there are as broad 
and numerous as here. And finally I spent one year work- 
ing among them as one of them, occupying an educational 
office under the Prussian Ministry of Education and giv- 
ing instruction in the Prussian Universities at Berlin and 
Bonn and in the Saxon University at Leipzig. Moreover, 
it is now nearly four years since I had the great honor, 
pleasure and advantage of making the personal acquain- 
tance of His Majesty, the Emperor. I have had, not one 
interview with His Majesty, but a number of interviews; 
and being for a year virtually one of his own educational 
officials and going to him on a mission of friendship and 
culture, I have reason to believe that his conversations 
with me have been as free and frank and confidential 
as with any foreigner whom he has ever honored with 
his invitations. I say these things in order to show that, 
while I have no warrant from His Majesty or from 
anybody else to advance the opinions which will constitute 
the substance of this paper, I have the warrant of a little 
first-hand knowledge. I know there are those who will 
say, "He knows too much, he is too friendly and therefore 
he is prejudiced." It may be that there is a tinge of truth 
in this claim. But there is also a prejudice which arises 
from ignorance and is of a far more harmful character. 
Ignorance and prejudice are twins like the fear and folly - 
twain, of which the philosopher-poet truly said : 

"The one closes our eyes; 
The other peoples the dark inane 
With spectral lies. " 

When I read long and labored editorials in the best 
journals on the German situation by men who do not even 
know the Emperor's correct title, who do not even know 
that he is not the Emperor of Germany but the President 

6 



of the United States of Germany and in this capacity enti- 
tled German Emperor, or if they do know this, do not 
understand the political and legal differences and distinc- 
tions between an Emperor of Germany and a German 
Emperor, I cannot help feeling that that harmful and 
hateful prejudice born of ignorance may have vitiated the 
entire view of such writers, and that they are but blind 
leaders of the blind. There is one more prefatory word 
which I wish to speak, namely: that nothing which I shall 
say is to be taken in the light of a criticism either of the 
German Emperor or the German people. I have too 
much respect and regard for both him and them to meddle 
with the more domestic side of their relations to each other. 
My long lif e and experience among the Germans and with 
all classes of them in their own national home has taught 
me that they are a strong-minded, highly educated, warm- 
hearted, just, generous, peace-loving, industrious and en- 
terprising people, and that their great Emperor is the chief 
among them in the possession of all these admirable quali- 
ties and virtues. It has never been my fortune to come 
into contact with a man of keener intellect, wider informa- 
tion, warmer heart, larger ideals, sincerer courtesy, truer 
deference for the opinions of others, greater desire to do 
good and be helpful in all directions and to everybody and 
stronger loyalty to friends, country and the interests of 
general civilization than His Majesty, the German Em- 
peror. Simple and temperate in his personal habits, a 
devoted husband and father, a true friend and benefactor, 
a devout believer, a great statesman and philanthropist, a 
genuine idealist with a rare resourcefulness, an indefatiga- 
ble worker for the weal of his country and the peace and 
civilization of the world — in a sentence a man, a Christian 
and a gentleman in the highest sense of these words— such 
is the picture of the Emperor as I know him both from 
afar and at rather close range. 

7 



Moreover, I think I know the Emperor's leading ideas 
in regard to the general principles of world policy. He 
stands for peace and friendship between all the countries 
of the world and thinks that there are special reasons, 
ethnical, political and cultural, why such relations should 
obtain between Germany, England and the United States. 
He thinks not of territorial aggrandizement for Germany, 
but of trade, commerce and intercourse, under the freest 
possible conditions between all nations, the commerce both 
of mind and of matter. You all know that he is the 
originator of what is called the Gelehrten-Austausch, the 
exchange of educators, which has for its purpose the bring- 
ing of the men of learning of one country into other coun- 
tries to diffuse a better understanding between all countries 
and, by a comparison of fundamental ideas, to arrive at a 
world-philosophy and a world-morality, upon which the 
world's peace and the world's civilization may finally and 
firmly rest. I have had the very great good fortune to be 
able to observe the great interest and zeal and comprehen- 
siveness of view with which His Majesty has pursued this 
idea. When President Butler and I first went to him, in 
the summer of 1905, to say to him that Columbia Uni- 
versity was prepared to meet his suggestion of the preced- 
ing January, his pleasure was manifest and unconcealed; 
but he said, and this may interest people on both sides 
of the sea: "This belongs to the sphere of Althoff 's work 
and responsibilities. We must have Althoff here with 
us before we can do anything." He then immediately 
called the chief of his Civil Cabinet, von Lucanus, 
to him, and directed him to telegraph for Althoff to 
come at once to Wilhelmshohe. Two days later Alt- 
hoff came, and the negotiations from the side of His 
Majesty's government were carried on entirely through 
him. 

But I am sure the query will arise in the minds of my 
8 



readers why with such a perfect man and considerate 
ruler, on the one side, and with such a just and magnan- 
imous people, on the other, should there have arisen such 
an agitation as has recently prevailed in Germany over 
the publication, in an English journal, of some remarks 
of His Majesty upon certain events which happened some 
eight years ago, and which remarks were evidently in- 
tended to demonstrate the friendly feeling of His Majesty 
towards the English government and the English people. 
I am obliged to confess that I myself was, at first, 
greatly at a loss to understand it, especially after the 
Chancellor had explained that the Foreign Office was re- 
sponsible for the appearance of these remarks in the public 
press. But as the agitation developed it became finally 
manifest that a certain political party, and possibly more 
than one, had conceived the idea that the opportunity for 
forcing by popular pressure a change in the constitutional 
law of Germany was at hand, a change which they could 
not hope to effect by the regular process of constitutional 
amendment, namely: the change from what they termed 
"personal government" to what is known in political 
science as parliamentary government. I know that some of 
the leaders of these parties maintain that such a change 
does not involve an amendment of the constitution, that the 
constitution as it now stands provides that the official acts 
of the Emperor must be countersigned by the Chancellor, 
who thereby assumes the responsibility therefor, and that 
the budget must be voted by the legislative bodies, and that 
therefore the legislative bodies have only to refuse to vote 
the budget until the Emperor and the Chancellor acknow- 
ledge the political responsibility of the Chancellor to the 
legislature and the thing would be done, without constitu- 
tional amendment. Perhaps it would, but in my opinion, 
as a political scientist and constitutional lawyer, it would 
have been done by legislative usurpation. The constitu- 

9 



tion of the United States of America also provides that 
Congress shall raise the revenues and make the appropria- 
tions, but it would sound very strangely to an American 
lawyer if it should be contended that, in case Congress 
should refuse to do these things until the President and his 
Cabinet should acknowledge the political responsibility of 
the members of the Cabinet for the official acts of the Presi- 
dent to Congress, Congress would not be attempting to 
force a constitutional change by usurpation. It is true 
that the German constitution declares the Chancellor re- 
sponsible for the official acts of the Emperor, but it does 
not declare to whom he is responsible. There are three 
alternatives,. therefore, either of which may be arrived at 
by interpretation. He may be responsible to the Emperor, 
responsible to the courts, or responsible to the legislature. 
The commentators and the practice for nearly forty years 
have fully decided that it is not the last. It may be the 
second, but in that case it would be only a criminal respon- 
sibility, such as the President and civil officers of the 
United States are placed under, leaving his political 
responsibility to the Emperor alone. This is the situa- 
tion as Prince Bismarck, the chief author of the con- 
stitution, understood it, and the substitution of the 
political responsibility of the Chancellor to the legislature 
for it can be lawfully effected only by a constitu- 
tional amendment. This is something which the Emperor 
alone cannot make and cannot lawfully assent to, except 
through the members of the Federal Council represent- 
ing the Prussian State, whom he as King of Prussia, in 
accordance with the constitution of Prussia, appoints and 
instructs. 

But let us return a little from this digression in order to 
explain the meaning of the appearance also of more con- 
servative elements in the fomenting of the recent agitation, 
elements which made themselves heard much more respect- 

10 



fully and guardedly. They certainly were not moved by 
the hope of securing out of the turmoil the introduction of 
the parliamentary system of government. But almost 
without exception they were guided by the men who have 
been protesting against the centralizing tendencies of re- 
cent years, the states rights men, the modern particularists. 
Consciously or unconsciously to themselves, I am fully 
persuaded that their particularism was the secret force 
which caused them to exaggerate the supposed effects of 
His Majesty's remarks on the diplomacy and government 
of the Empire. Through this sentiment they were actually 
betrayed into a position in which they appeared to the 
outside world to be acting in harmony with the advocates 
of parliamentary government, for the purpose of curbing 
what these latter termed "personal government." It be- 
came quickly manifest, however, that this apparent har- 
mony was only momentary and that the nation as a whole 
is making no demand for parliamentary government, but 
that, on the contrary, the large majority of the people, and 
that majority containing the best elements of the people, 
would most probably oppose its introduction. Being 
anxious that my own fellow countrymen should understand 
this situation correctly, I am going to examine into this 
question of parliamentary government for Germany with 
some degree of minuteness. 

In the first place, let me say a word about this great bug- 
bear called "personal government." In a certain sense all 
government is personal, that is, it is carried on through the 
activity of certain persons or a certain person. From this 
point of view the only question with which we have to deal 
is, who is the best person to be entrusted with authority in 
a given sphere? The government of the United States is a 
strongly personal government from this point of view, and 
the President of the United States is vested with a power of 
personal discretion in conducting the administration not 

11 



exceeded, on the whole, by that of any King or Emperor in 
Europe. I suppose, however, that what most writers intend 
by the term "personal government" is arbitrary govern- 
ment, that is, government by some one person or group of 
persons without any constitutional limitations or in defi- 
ance thereof, provided such exist. If such be its intended 
meaning then it has no more application to the German 
Emperor than to our President. Germany has a written 
constitution, framed and adopted by the German princes 
and the German people, which defines the powers of the 
government and the liberties of the States of the Union 
and of the people; and if the German Emperor has in any 
of his governmental acts overstepped the powers vested in 
him by the constitution, I have no knowledge of it, nor 
have I seen that he has been charged with it by anybody. 
Talk is not government, certainly talk about something 
that happened six to eight years ago is not government. 
But some say it was an indiscretion, "a blazing indiscre- 
tion," and some people seem to think that this is a violation 
of the constitution, and an exhibition of autocracy. Well, 
we in this republican country have long held up to re- 
proach the mystery which guards the King, and now when 
a King and Emperor, who is, in every sense of the word, a 
man, steps forward out of that mystery and expresses his 
ideas about the situation of the world or even about ancient 
history, we call it indiscretion. Perhaps it is, but there is 
another fault equally as grave, namely: inconsistency. 
Discretion in speech is usually a desirable quality, not al- 
ways. I do not rate it among the virtues of the first class. 
Moreover there is a petty discretion and a "grand" dis- 
cretion and what often appears to most men as indiscretion 
is really "grand" discretion. My memory goes back now 
a long way. I remember when for years the man who did 
more than any other in our history, perhaps more than all 
others taken together, to call the attention of the nation to 

12 



the giant wrong of slavery was for years and decades fairly 
cursed for his indiscretions of speech, even by the men who 
agreed with him in regard to the desirability of the end 
which he sought. And now he is universally revered for 
his prescience and goodness. I remember that when Abra- 
ham Lincoln resolved to put that famous Freeport question 
to Douglas in regard to the power of the people of a 
United States Territory to exclude slavery during the 
Territorial period, all of his friends, most of whom were 
considered men of intellect and judgment, declared to him 
that it would be the height of indiscretion, and now we 
all know that it was the thing, above all others, which de- 
feated Douglas for the presidency and made Lincoln 
President. And who will now venture to claim that the 
ordinary discretion of speech in high places would have 
roused the moral sense of this nation to its present resolu- 
tion to put an end to unlawful and dishonest practices in 
all business great and small. If I understand the present 
situation of this world the greatest dangers to the peace of 
the world spring from two sources, namely: the suspected 
purpose of England to isolate Germany and cripple its 
commerce, and the suspected future purpose of Japan to 
control China and middle Asia and close their doors to 
free commerce with other nations. The German nation 
within the German Empire numbers some sixty-five mil- 
lions of the most intelligent, moral, capable, peace-loving 
and enterprising people in the world, increasing in number 
by more than a half million of souls annually through ex- 
cess of births over deaths, inhabiting a territory of less than 
two hundred and ten thousand English square miles, sixty 
thousand square miles less than our single state of Texas, 
and seeking to provide for these teeming millions, not by 
any policy of territorial aggrandizement, but by a policy 
of peaceable trade and commerce with the world, confer- 
ring thus benefit as well as receiving it. Any successful 

13 



attempt to restrict this sound development, sound both 
from a national and a world point of view, is bound to re- 
sult in an explosion which will rock Europe from one end 
to the other and threaten the welfare of America. Again, 
China and middle Asia, with a population of six hundred 
millions of people, have now appeared at the threshold of 
modern civilization and are about to open their doors to 
free commerce and intercourse with all civilized nations, 
for the welfare and advantage of all concerned. Any suc- 
cessful attempt by Japan alone, or by Japan, England and 
Russia in league, to bar the way of this development would 
be, not only a mortal affront to China and middle Asia, but 
a challenge to all other nations, and would inevitably pro- 
duce a struggle between the Orient and the Occident, in 
which the powers of the Occident might be themselves di- 
vided. No more perilous situation to these United States 
of America and the civilization of the modern world could 
be imagined than this. Now if the recent excitement oc- 
casioned—I will not say caused— by the words of His 
Majesty, the Emperor, shall call the earnest attention of 
all nations to these two greatest of perils to civilization and 
the peace of the world, then will those words be seen to 
have been words of the highest discretion and the most far- 
reaching wisdom. Before men can rightly distinguish the 
discreet from the indiscreet, either in speech or action, men 
must cease to be foolish, narrow-minded and short-sighted 
themselves, and I greatly fear from many recent evidences 
that the world is still in the condition, in that respect, which 
Carlyle so cynically described some fifty years ago. I have 
lived long enough to know that the words and deeds of the 
frank, spontaneous, impulsive man, especially when they 
flow out of a full intellect and a fixed purpose for good, 
are far more likely to be discreet, in a large sense and in 
the long run, than those of all the Talleyrands whom the 
world has ever produced. 

14 



But let us go back now to the question of parliamentary 
government for Germany. And first of all, what is par- 
liamentary government? One would think from the ordi- 
nary newspaper comments on this question that the phrase 
and the thing designated by it were synonymous with con- 
stitutional government. As a matter of fact, however, from 
the point of view of the American idea of constitutional 
government, namely: limited government, parliamen- 
tary government is the least constitutional and the most 
arbitrary form of government known to modern times. 
Parliamentary government means ultimately the almighty 
unlimited legislature. More than that, it means the al- 
mighty unlimited lower house of the legislature. More 
ultimately still, it means the almighty unlimited rule of the 
majority party in the lower house of the legislature; and at 
the very last stage in the development, it means the al- 
mighty unlimited rule of the leader of that majority, re- 
strained at best only by a sort of gentlemen's agreement, 
which can very easily become a rogue's agreement. And 
it makes little difference whether you have a written 
constitution back of such a legislature or not. It has the 
ultimate interpretation of that constitution and it can 
construe away any paper limitations which such a con- 
stitution may contain, and will do it. Whether there shall 
be any individual liberty under it depends entirely upon 
the disposition of the legislature, and whether there shall 
be any local self-government under it depends on the same 
thing. 

We don't want that kind of government in this coun- 
try. We won't have it. Let us examine briefly what 
our attitude has been towards it. There was a time when 
this kind of government was proposed here, namely: in the 
Convention of 1787, which framed our present constitution, 
at its first sitting. It is well known that the resolutions 
proposed by Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia 

15 



formed the basis of the discussions in the Convention. These 
resolutions proposed the creation of a government composed 
of a legislature, the lower house of which should be chosen 
by the voters, the upper house of which should be chosen by 
the lower, a legislature which should elect the executive, 
create the courts by statute, and which should have the power 
to veto all the acts of the legislatures of the States of the 
Union. Following the principles of these resolutions Mr. 
Charles Pinckney of South Carolina presented the first 
draft of a constitution, and the parliamentary system was 
before the Convention. For nearly four months the Con- 
vention, in committee of the whole and in regular sittings, 
discussed these propositions, and when it finally voted the 
constitution as it now stands, there was not a shred left of 
them, except the election of the lower house of the legisla- 
ture, that is, of the Congress, by the voters. On the other 
hand, the Convention voted to create a Senate, an upper 
house of the legislature, whose members should be chosen by 
the legislatures of the States of the Union, an executive, 
who should be chosen by electors appointed in each State of 
the Union as the legislature thereof should direct, and a 
judiciary whose members should be appointed by the 
President and Senate, with tenure of good behavior and 
with salaries undiminishable during their periods of office. 
And finally it voted to drop the proposition for a veto 
power of Congress over the acts of the legislatures of the 
States of the Union, to give the President a veto power 
over the acts of Congress, to establish a constitutional do- 
main of individual immunity against all governmental 
power, and to vest the judiciary with the power to protect 
the same against encroachment either by the executive or 
the legislature. Now why did this Convention, beginning 
with this proposition of parliamentary government, make 
this radical departure from it and finally vote the exact 
contradictory? The answer to this query is easy, clear and 

16 



satisfactory and can be stated in a single sentence, namely : 
that in the course of its discussions the Convention became 
firmly convinced, that with parliamentary government at 
the center neither the liberty of the individual nor the 
autonomy of the States of the Union could be preserved, 
and that parliamentary government, in its final stage of 
development, is more autocratic than any royal government 
which could be well conceived. 

After the constitution of 1787 was adopted and the new 
government created by it went into operation, a certain 
defect in the machinery for the election of the President 
enabled the Congress to gain gradually a control over the 
tenure of the President which threatened to result in the 
development of a quasi-parliamentarism. This became 
finally clear to the people in the election of 1824, and at the 
next following opportunity, in the election of 1828, the 
people under the leadership of General Jackson rose in 
might against it and restored the independence of the 
executive over against the legislature so effectively that 
for forty years it was not again threatened. Finally, after 
the military despotism of the presidency during the Civil 
War and the struggle with President Johnson over the 
problem of Reconstruction, the Congress made a last effort 
to subordinate the executive power to itself, which effort 
culminated in the impeachment scandal of 1868, inaugu- 
rated by the House of Representatives, rebuked by the 
Senate and repudiated by the people, and so ended the last 
attempt to establish parliamentary government in these 
United States. 

And now shall we recommend this cast-off thing for 
Germany and represent to our own people that Germany 
does not have a constitutional government unless she ac- 
cepts it? Is the political situation of Germany and the 
Germans so different from our own, that what is unfit for 

17 



us is the correct and only proper thing for them? Will 
anybody who knows anything about the present Constitu- 
tion of the German Empire pretend that this is true? Let 
us examine the principles of that constitution with a little 
minuteness and some thought. If I should designate the 
entire political fabric organized by it as "the United States 
of Germany," I would give the American mind a much 
clearer and truer conception of it than the title "German 
Empire" conveys. It is a federal or dual system of gov- 
ernment, resting upon a written constitution, framed by the 
princes and people of the twenty-five States of the Union, 
which contains a process for its own amendment fully as 
easy of application as our own. The constitution pro- 
vides a central government of enumerated powers, consist- 
ing of a legislature, the members of the lower house of 
which are chosen by the suffrage of all male citizens over 
twenty-five years of age and those of the upper house by 
the States of the Union, and of a President of the Union, 
who must always be the wearer of the Prussian crown, and 
in his capacity of President of the Union is entitled Ger- 
man Emperor. It reserves all other powers of government 
not expressly or implicitly vested in the central govern- 
ment to the States of the Union, gives the Emperor no 
general veto power over legislative acts, but a special veto 
power over certain enumerated acts, leaves the creation 
and organization of the judiciary to legislative statutes, 
and makes the executive politically independent of the 
legislature in administration. The German political sys- 
tem is thus in principle the counterpart of our own with 
the two exceptions, that the imperial constitution does not 
create the judiciary immediately and by its own provisions, 
but vests the power for this in the imperial legislature, and 
does provide the hereditary tenure for the executive. 
Now do these differences make parliamentary govern- 
ment necessary or even desirable for Germany while 

18 



it is unfitted to our case? Let us see. No Amer- 
ican will venture to claim, I think, that because the 
German constitution does not by its own provisions 
create and organize the courts of Justice, Germany should 
therefore have parliamentary government. On the other 
hand, the vast majority of Americans will say that the legis- 
lature in the German system has already too much power 
over the judiciary, and that the Germans would improve 
their constitution greatly by so amending it as to give the 
courts constitutional independence both against the legisla- 
ture and the executive and by vesting them with the power 
to override the legislative interpretation of the constitu- 
tion, whenever the legislative acts should, in their judg- 
ment, trench upon the constitutional immunities of the 
individual against governmental power. In fact, some 
publicists contend that the imperial court at Leipzig and 
the subordinate courts in the States, in spite of their statu- 
tory nature, already have this power, on the principle enun- 
ciated by the great jurist, Prof. Rudolf von Gneist, in the 
period of the adoption of the imperial constitution. He 
claimed that the constitution is law, the supreme law, that 
the courts must apply the law in every case, and that when 
there is, in the opinion of the court, a conflict between the 
law in the constitution and the law in the legislative act, 
the courts must follow the former and disregard the latter. 
On the basis of this principle, the imperial court and the 
subordinate courts may work out by judicial interpretation 
a sphere of immunity for the individual against govern- 
mental power very nearly corresponding to our own. 

The difference between the German system of govern- 
ment and our own in fundamental principle is thus really 
reduced to the one point of the difference in the executive 
tenure. And the final question of the whole discussion is 
this, namely: does the hereditary tenure of the Emperor 

19 



make necessary or even desirable parliamentary govern- 
ment for Germany while it is unfitted and undesirable for 
us? I cannot see that the mere tenure of the executive 
has any significance at all in this question. I can see that 
the absolute irresponsibility of the Emperor both to the 
legislature and the courts makes it necessary, in order to 
maintain constitutional government against his possible 
arbitrary acts, that all his governmental acts should be 
countersigned by an agent who does not enjoy his absolute 
irresponsibility. This is already provided for in the impe- 
rial constitution, which declares that all the governmental 
orders and decrees of the Emperor must be countersigned 
by the Chancellor, who becomes expressly responsible 
therefor and impliedly responsible also for the official acts 
of all the imperial ministers, since they are only his subor- 
dinates. As I have already said, the constitution does not 
expressly declare to whom the Chancellor is responsible 
and the practice of nearly forty years has decided that it is 
not to the legislature. It can be, therefore, nothing more 
than the same kind of responsibility as that provided in our 
own constitution for the President and those who counter- 
sign his governmental orders and other civil officers, 
namely : a responsibility, enforced only through "impeach- 
ment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery or other high 
crimes and misdemeanors." This is all that is necessary in 
the way of executive responsibility to carry on consti- 
tutional government here, and it is likewise all that is 
necessary there. There is thus nothing which renders par- 
liamentary government less unfitted for Germany than for 
these United States, and there is one thing of which I have 
not yet spoken, which renders it much more unfitted for 
Germany than for these United States, namely: geo- 
graphical location. Wedged in between Russia, Austria 
and France, a powerful independent executive in command 
of a vast military force is the only thing which has rescued 

20 



Germany from being the seat of war and the field of booty 
for Europe, and it is the only thing which can preserve it 
against these scourges. I do not need to argue this ques- 
tion with anybody who knows anything about the history 
of Europe from the Middle Ages to the present, and I am 
going to assume that all my readers do, and not occupy 
their time further on this point. 

No ! parliamentary government is even less fitted for the 
United States of Germany than for the United States of 
America, and is no more likely to be realized there than 
here. I am sure that the majority of the Germans do not 
want it now, and that very few of them would want it, if 
they understood its full and final meaning, and I am also 
sure that we Americans, with the like understanding, would 
not wish to see this calamity imposed upon them, even by 
themselves. The constitutional development of the United 
States of Germany lies in another and very different direc- 
tion, in a direction for which we ourselves have, in respect 
to the point considered, set the chief example. 

I have undertaken this exposition much against my own 
inclinations, but it has seemed to me to be my duty to do 
what I could to clear away the apparent misunderstanding 
in the minds of some of my countrymen, that because the 
German governmental system is not parliamentary gov- 
ernment, it is not constitutional government, and most im- 
portant of all in order to prevent misrepresentations of 
this kind from exercising a baleful influence over the judg- 
ment of my countrymen in regard to what should be the 
transcendent purpose of our world-policy and what are the 
proper and necessary steps and measures for its realization. 
I cannot in silence see anything obscure the great fact that 
among all the rulers of the world the German Emperor is 
our most intelligent and sincere friend, and among all the 
peoples the German nation, or the truth of the idea that the 

21 



peace and civilization of the world depend more upon 
the friendship and cooperation of Germany, England and 
the United States than upon anything else or everything 
else that the wit of mortals can devise. 



22 



GERMANISTIC 
SOCIETY QUARTERLY 



The Germanistic Society Quarterly is issued by the Germanistic 
Society of America, a corporation. The officers of the Germanistic So- 
ciety of America are Antonio Knauth, president ; Wilhelm A. Braun, 
secretary ; Carl L. Schurz, treasurer. The principal place of business 
of the corporation and the address of the officers is the Deutsches Haus, 
419 West 117th Street, New York City. 

The Quarterly is addressed to the members of the Germanistic Society 
and to all others interested in the objects for which it was founded, viz. , 
to promote the knowledge and study of German civilization in America 
and of American civilization in Germany. It is the purpose of the edi- 
torial board of the magazine to contribute to this result by the publica- 
tion of such lectures delivered before the Society, either in English or 
in German, as make a particularly wide appeal and from the nature of 
their subjects have more than a temporary interest, with the view of 
thus making them available for a much larger audience than originally 
was able to listen to them. Many things of interest and value, too, to 
the members of the Germanistic Society outside of its own immediate 
activities can only be communicated through the medium of a publica- 
tion. The Quarterly, in both these directions, is intended to supply a 
continuity that has hitherto been lacking in the work of the Society 
and to supplement it in a way to assure it a larger currency and a wider 
influence. 

The Quarterly is issued in March, June, September, and December, 
each volume beginning with the March number. Annual subscription, 
one dollar ; single number, thirty cents. 

All communications should be addressed to the Germanistic Society 
Quarterly, at Lancaster, Pa., or at the Deutsches Haus, 419 West 117th 
St., New York City. Subscriptions may also be entered and single 
numbers purchased at the Deutsches Haus. 



Publications of the 

Germanistic Society of 
America 



I. Germany and the United States. 

An address delivered before the Germanistic Society of America, 
January 24, 1908, by John W. Burgess, Ph.D., LL.D., Presi- 
dent of the Germanistic Society of America. New York, 1 908. 

II. The German Emperor and the German 
Government. 

An address delivered before the Germanistic Society of America, 
January 5, 1909, by John W. Burgess, Ph.D., LL.D., First 
Roosevelt Professor in the University of Berlin, President of the 
Germanistic Society of America. New York, 1 909. 

HI. Das Geheimnis der Gestalt. 

Vortrag gehalten vor der Germanistischen Gesellschaft von 
Amerika, 2. Dezember, 1908, von Carl Hauptmann. New 
York, 1909. 

IV. The Activities of the Germanistic 
Society of America, 1904 — 1910. 

New York, 1910. 

V. The Activities of the Germanistic 
Society of America, 1910. 

New York, 1911. 

VI. Germany's Economic Progress and 
National Wealth, 1888—1913. 

By Dr. Karl Helfferich, Director of the Deutsche Bank, Berlin. 
New York, 1914. 

Annual Reports of the Germanistic Society 
of America, 1911, 1912, 1913. 

The Germanistic Society Quarterly. 

Copies of the above publications will be furnished upon application to the 

Corresponding Secretary of the Germanistic Society of America, Deutsches 

Haus, 4 1 9 West 1 1 7th Street, New York. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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